Under this foundry agreement, CST will supply to Versawave fully processed GaAs wafers with an optical coating, as designed and specified by Versawave.

“We are delighted to be working with a world-class partner like Compound Semiconductor Technologies,” stated David Weymouth, Optelian’s CEO. “Their Class 50 clean room environment, combined with full ISO compliance, enables Optelian to maintain our exceptionally high manufacturing standards.”

In conjunction with this agreement, Optelian has also ramped up Versawave facilities at its corporate and manufacturing headquarters in Ottawa. The wafers supplied by CST will be integrated into Versawave opto-electical modules by Optelian’s manufacturing team.

“Quality is a core aspect of the culture here at Optelian,” said Dennis Isotti, Vice President of Operations. “Optelian is TL-9000 certified, which is a catalyst that helps create an environment of continuous improvement for the organization. We are proud of our North American manufacturing capabilities and have the expertise to ramp up production of Versawave modules to orders of magnitude above the current production capacity.”

Versawave module production will be transferred into a newly built custom clean room space where process and operations will be fully integrated into Optelian’s production and quality control systems. Manufacturing is capable of 24/7 production, resulting in shorter lead times while ensuring on-time customer delivery and quality.

“Moving R&D and Operations under the same roof will not only make us more efficient, but also more agile”, said Simon Benwell, Director of Advanced Optical Components, at Optelian’s Versawave Division. “By having R&D work in conjunction with the production teams, our NPI times will reduce significantly while our production capacity will drastically increase. These are both essential for our new products coming onto the market in 2014 and beyond.”

Optelian’s Versawave Division will be represented at Optelian’s Booth #2502 at OFC in San Francisco from March 11 – 13, 2014.

About Versawave – A Division of Optelian
Versawave – A Division of Optelian, is a leader in the field of ultra-high bandwidth gallium arsenide based optical modulators with patented polarization modulation technology. Products are designed, developed, and manufactured in Canada. Versawave was acquired by Optelian in 2011. For more information, visit www.versawave.com. For more information about Optelian, visit www.optelian.com.

About Compound Semiconductor Technologies Global (CST)
CST is a ‘pure play’ semiconductor foundry specialising in the design, development, and manufacture of discrete and integrated III-V opto-electronic devices, based in Glasgow, UK. Since 1999, CST has provided specialist foundry services to clients in the Telecommunications, Defence, Medical and Instrumentation markets. CST offers full product support from design to manufacturing, levered off a comprehensive library of qualified fabrication processes and a suite of high performance device platforms, which are proven to produce robust and reliable devices. Combined with our ISO 9001:2000 qualified manufacturing infrastructure, this provides an unrivalled environment for the needs of the global opto-electronic industry. Today CST serves both fabless and vertically integrated customers in UK, North America, Europe and Asia, and is recognised as a flagship project for the UK opto-electronics industry. For more information about CST, visit www.compoundsemi.co.uk.